A new year. A new Annie?

She returns to the Kellers’ late that night, though she’s not due back until the following morning. It is not until she has stripped naked in her little bathroom that she realizes she is no longer cold, that the house has made her warm. But to be sure, she turns on the bathwater, turns it on until the steam is searing her eyelids. She sticks her arm in, feeling nothing but a soft inner peace, like a lullaby sung just for her.

When she raises her arm out of the water, she is surprised to find welts, red and blistering, sizzling like garlic on a hot pan.

The next morning, she wakes Suzy gently, her gift, wrapped in gold with a pink ribbon, sitting on the dresser. Suzy jumps up and down when, through sleepy eyes, she spots Annie’s face hovering over her. She gives Annie a big hug around her neck and a sloppy kiss, and Annie falls into bed with her, squeezing her. “Why’d you leave?” she asks.

“Your mama made me.” Suzy wrinkles her nose.

“Silly Mama!” She rubs her nose against Annie’s.

Before breakfast, Annie hands over the present, and Suzy takes her time unwrapping it, gingerly sliding her little fingers under the tape after Annie has untied the ribbon for her.

“Wow!” she exclaims as the wrapping finally falls off and she sees the beautiful princess on the cover, blond hair just like hers, crown shimmering in three-dimensional splendor, tangible little gems raised in low relief on the drawing.

“It has all your favorites,” Annie says, turning the pages. Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, The Princess and the Frog in bright colors, the pages trimmed with gold leaf.

“I wanna go inside the story,” Suzy murmurs, turning the pages quicker and quicker until Annie has to slow her down lest she tear the paper.

Then, there’s a sound Annie’s never heard in this house before, a plaintive meow. And the book is on the floor, Suzy jumping up out of the room so quickly that Annie doesn’t know in which direction she has gone.

She’s crouched next to a giant orange cat, its tail fluffy, its coat shiny and well-groomed. Her arms are around its neck, nuzzling it, and the cat is purring, nudging its head against Suzy’s. “He’s named Tiger!” Suzy says as explanation, the cat now licking her nose like a dog. “I love him.” She burrows her nose in its fur and the creature is enamored, falling into Suzy’s lap and stretching out for a belly rub.